I am with her always to guide her. I have not failed yet.
The churning air quieted, and the pelting of his body ceased.
Silence lingered until Chap thought he was once again alone, but he still felt his kin all around, quiet and contemplative until the acknowledgment came. We cling to hope.
Chap heard his own labored breathing, felt the pounding of his heart and the cool earth beneath his belly. All else in the woods was quiet. Even the tingle on his own skin had faded.
A light breeze made the branches sway and rustle. No longer a wall of limbs and shadows, they were as widely scattered as when he'd first entered the clearing. When Chap lifted his head, his kin were gone, and all that remained was the living world around him.
"Chap!" Leesil's voice called out. "Where in the seven hells are you?"
He turned and loped toward the road but stopped short to look back, then sat down to wait halfway between road and clearing. When the wagon rolled up, Magiere pulled the horses to a halt.
"No more running off," Magiere grumbled at him.
Wynn clambered out of the wagon's back, wobbling slightly as she rubbed her stiff legs. Outfitted in breeches, stout little boots, and a white shirt, her hooded short-robe did not quite reach her knees. She looked strange, perhaps less solemn, without her long gray robe.
"I do not care how far you want to get from the city," she said on an exhale, and glared up at Magiere on the wagon's bench. "This is far enough for one day, let alone part of a night."
Before Magiere could answer, Leesil hopped down from his place beside her.
"I have to agree," he said. "And Chap's already found a decent clearing to camp for the night."
"We could have booked passage on a schooner," Magiere said, and tied off the reins. "That would have taken us straight across the gulf to the Vudran Bay and the mouth of the Vudrask River. Then we needn't bother with this wagon-or camping at night."
"I told you," Leesil responded, "I have no intention of ever voluntarily climbing back onto some floating casket. Watching my food come up over and over again is not my idea of entertainment."
An old argument, but its familiarity brought Chap no comfort. And yet, he had made his point to his kin. He would not fall from his way, and he would not dominate or enslave Magiere's will. Persuasion was another matter, and there was time left to change her path.
As Wynn unpacked and Magiere tended the horses, Leesil walked toward Chap with his waterskin in hand. He patted Chap on the head as he passed, then stopped with a wrinkle of his nose.
"What have you been rolling in?" Leesil muttered, and wiped the dirt off his hand from touching Chap's head. "You… a Fay? My splinter-ridden backside! Less than a day out, and already you need a bath."
Chap lay down in that very spot and watched over his companions until late into the night.
Chapter 2
O ver a half moon later, Magiere reined in her shaggy pony with a sigh as she waited for a sullen Leesil to catch up.
"Half-mad bag of bones," he muttered once again to his mount.
From Bela, they'd traveled inland down the Belaskian peninsula and south of the Inward Bay, then eastward along the Gulf of Belaski's lower coast. When they reached the head of the Vudrask River, Magiere had decided to sell the wagon and horses to buy passage upriver on a barge. Wynn was indifferent with fatigue, but Leesil quickly agreed. As much as he despised sea travel, rivers didn't roll endlessly, making his food rise in his throat. The barge's smooth glide was also preferable to jostling along upon a wagon bench. Even against the mild current, at most times the barge was as quick as traveling by road. The riverside paths were clear and close, and teams of mules were set ashore to pull the barge as they headed southeast upon the Vudrask toward Magiere's past.
The quiet voyage brought Magiere tranquillity as she huddled beneath a blanket with Leesil. Wynn and Chap stayed close together, as well. Their trek inland seemed a blur of lost memory rather than recent events, and Magiere pulled close to Leesil that first day on the barge.
"We haven't had much time to ourselves," she said to him. "One night. That's all."
Leesil smiled at her. "There'll be time enough in this life. I'm in no hurry on that journey."
She remembered the night he'd first kissed her, taking her by surprise as they'd argued in the sage's barracks following the end of their hunt in Bela. The words he'd spoken just before the touch of his mouth still lingered in her thoughts.
"I've lived three lives," he'd said. "As a child in the War-lands, knowing only deceit and death. Then roaming the countryside alone but for Chap. Finally, the game with you, from the night we met… with Chap's meddling. I'm looking at a fourth life now. Any life begins by stepping forward to live it. And I say again-I won't die on you."
So little time had passed since they'd curled together the following night in the first inn on the road out of Bela. This new closeness was awkward and strange, but she clung to it. For his sake more than her own, she wished this fourth life to be his last and longest.
Leesil's hand rested upon her thigh beneath the blanket as the barge slipped along the river. She put her hand on top of his, thumb wrapping around his wrist. She felt the scars there from her own teeth-from the long lost night in Miiska when he'd saved her life with his own blood. Those marks made fear crawl through her, but she refused to pull her hand away.
Magiere watched the autumn-gilded world glide by, saw its changes not only in season but in the land itself as they passed through the far reaches of Belaski on the south shore and Stravina to the north side. After seven more days, they passed beyond the well-kept ways of Belaski and into another world, where the river became a border between Stravina and Droevinka. Neither country had Belaski's wealth or organized government to oversee even the main land routes along the Vudrask. As the river narrowed and its current increased slightly, the bargemen switched their own mules for ox teams chartered from local fanners eager for income during the fallow time. Passage became difficult and slow. After spending one day to cover four leagues, they stopped at a large village.
Magiere intended for them to ride the barge a bit farther, but her home village, Chemestuk, was a three-day ride away. This stop would be the last place to purchase mounts. When she suggested this to Leesil, he threw a fit.
"Horses? Trust my neck to some flea-bitten bag of muscle lunging around on four stick legs, and lurching at every windblown leaf? I'd rather puke my way up the coast on a cargo schooner!"
The following quarrel made the barge crew cease their dockside duties and stare-not to mention villagers close enough to overhear. In the end, Magiere purchased three sturdy ponies and a pack mule, then bullied Leesil into the saddle, while Wynn finished repacking their supplies.
That had been three days ago, and Magiere now waited upon her pony for Leesil to catch up. He'd barely spoken all day except to mumble colorful curses at his shaggy mount, which ignored most of his demands.
Magiere surveyed her dank homeland. Old trees were dotted with moss that dangled in scant beards from the branches. The ground was perpetually moist in the chill air, and beneath the aroma of loam and wild foliage was an ever-present scent of decay. The thickened forest nearly blotted out the cloud-coated sky, with only a brief respite whenever the puddled road swerved closer to the open riverbank. Droevinka was held in perpetual dusk by its shadowed and twining trees. Even when rain didn't fall, the murky canopy dripped upon them.
Magiere looked back for her companions. Wynn followed last with the tethered pack mule, Chap trotting along beside her mount. Leesil's charcoal-gray scarf, now spotted with drizzle, sat askew on his head, exposing a tangle of white-blond hair and one slightly pointed ear.